April Dembosky, KQED

Starting in less than two years, if state hospitals haven’t met targets for performance of C-sections, medical imaging and opioid prescription, they’ll risk being excluded from the “in-network” designation of health plans sold on the state’s insurance exchange.

California’s legislature will soon take up a bill that would require doctors to screen pregnant women and new mothers for mental health problems. Many doctors oppose the idea, and laws elsewhere haven’t increased the number of moms treated.

During Northern California’s recent wildfires, dozens of hospice patients who had hoped to spend their last days in the comfort of their homes had to be relocated to evacuation shelters, assisted living facilities and relatives’ homes instead.

ICU nurse Julayne Smithson had only a few minutes to grab some things from her recently purchased home a block from the Santa Rosa hospital. Then she rushed back to help evacuate patients and has scarcely stopped working since.